Consumers are switching grocery stores, brands and ingredients as they try to cope with the cost of food.— more than credit card, utilities, and car loans combined — and one of the leading causes of bankruptcy. And anyone is vulnerable, even the insured.“There’s ways that medical debt could not only put people in financial jeopardy, but also could actually worsen their health,” said Dr.
That was just the beginning: Manning’s oldest daughter broke her arm on her first day of middle school, resulting in an $800 ambulance bill. Her other daughter recently received a $2,000 bill for services that were unexpectedly not covered by her university’s insurance. And Aidan has weekly out-of-network chiropractor visits to keep his spine straight.
Dr. Naman Shah, the director of the division of medical and dental affairs at the L.A. County Department of Public Health, blames the sheer cost of insurance for this phenomenon in addition to the cost of premiums and high deductible plans, which have been increasing. He believes that resolving this issue requires further work at the state level.
Once both parties realized what had happened, Santibanez reactivated her Medi-Cal plan, but it took five months before the agency cleared the debt. “It’s hard when you have Medi-Cal when something goes wrong. It takes a while for them to figure out what’s going on,” she said. “How much medical debt you have shouldn’t have anything to do with your health,” Nicholas said, but “that was the biggest finding that we had.”